I felt the street veil fastened upon me. I was veiled as might have been a rich Gorean free woman of high caste, perhaps bound for the song dramas of En'Kara.
"How beautiful," said Eta. She, standing back, observed me. My master's eyes appraised me.
I stood straight. I knew how beautiful I looked, for, once before, some days ago in the camp, I had been so beclothed. I had seen myself, then, in the mirror.
The robes, carefully draped, primarily white, in their richness and sheen, were resplendent; over the veils my eyes would appear very dark. Gloves had been placed upon my hands. On my feet were scarlet slippers.
I knew that I was richly and beautifully bedecked. I knew, too, that I was small, and might be easily thrown to the shoulder of a man.
My master looked at me.
He put his hands on my shoulders.
"Do you dare place your hands on the body of a free woman," I asked him, deferentially adding, "Master?"
He stepped back. He regarded me thoughtfully. "Insolent," said he to himself, as though thinking, "that a mere slave should be placed in such garments."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Have I ever lashed you?" he asked.
I swallowed hard. "No, Master," I said.
"I should do so, sometime," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"It would scarcely do to run her in the Ta-Teera," said one of his men, standing nearby.
"Doubtless not," said my master, looking at his owned girl. How incredibly, and yet rationally and justifiably, I felt at his mercy. He was my master, He owned me. He could do whatever he wanted with me. He could trade me or sell me, or even slay me upon a whim, should he wish. I was absolutely his, his girl.
"She is beautiful," said Eta.
"She will have to do," said my master.
"They are camped not two pasangs from here," said one of the men.
A black cloak was brought. It was wrapped about me.
"Come, Slave Girl," said my master.
"Yes, Master," I said.
He turned about and, with his weapons, strode from the camp. I followed him, at his heel, where a slave girl belongs.
Eta remained behind.
The other men, the warriors, single file, fell into line behind us, following.
"Be silent," said my master.
I did not speak. Together, the men behind us, we observed the camp. There were more wagons in the retinue now. When first I had seen the retinue, several days ago, there had been only one, which had carried supplies.
The largest of the three moons was now full.
The camp lay nestled in a clearing in woods. A stream ran by one perimeter of the camp. This was joined by another stream, some two hundred yards beyond the camp. Guards had been posted.
"Quiet is the night," called one to the other. He was similarly answered.
I knew, by now, a smattering of Gorean. I could understand them. Eta had worked diligently with me. I could now respond swiftly to many commands. I knew the names of many articles. I had acquired some grammar. I was able to formulate simple sentences by myself. My masters could now command me, the barbarian girl, with relative satisfactoriness, in their own tongue, and I, to some extent, the lovely, barbarian slave from Earth, could respond to them in the tongue of my masters, theirs. I now, artlessly, unable to help myself, found myself thinking naturally of Gorean as the language of masters. It is a beautiful, melodious, expressive language. It is also, in the mouths of men, a strong, powerful, uncompromising language. When a girl is commanded in Gorean, she obeys.
I watched the guards, through the trees, make their rounds. There were several tents in the camp. In the center of the camp was a striped tent, almost a pavillion, supported on ten poles. I saw one of the girls, with bare arms, robed in classic white, unveiled, emerge from the central tent and, with a gourd dipper, go to the stream, where she filled the dipper and thence returned to the tent. There was a golden circlet on her throat, and another on her left wrist. One of the men had looked at her as she had walked past him. There was a fire in the tent, and smoke from this fire emerged from a hole at the tent's apex. Within, as they passed between the wall of the tent and the fire, I could see the shadows of one or two other girls. Near the central tent, almost as large, was a brown, turreted tent, with a pennon flying from a central pole. It was, I supposed, the tent of the camp's leader. There were some seventy or eighty men, I had conjectured several days ago, in the retinue. I could now see several sitting around open-air fires. Others were, I supposed, within the tents, perhaps sleeping.
The two palanquins which had been carried, by ten men apiece, were within the camp, turned upside down, to protect them, I supposed, from dew or rain. Beneath the one were several boxes and chests, those containing the riches which it had borne. Added to the one wagon which had been drawn by the shaggy, oxlike creatures were now four other wagons. These wagons, too, apparently, were each drawn by a pair of the oxlike creatures, called bosk. The wagons were now unhitched. Several animals, those called bosk, ten or more, hobbled, browsed among the trees on the other side of the camp.
Eta, though perhaps it was not proper, had much listened to the converse of the men, and, as my Gorean improved, conveyed certain pieces of information to me.
The retinue was the betrothal and dowry retinue of the Lady Sabina of the small merchant polis of Fortress of Saphronicus bound overland for Ti, of the Four Cities of Saleria, of the Salerian Confederation. Ti lies on the Olni, a tributary of the Vosk, north of Tharna. Tharna, sometimes called the City of Silver, is well known for the richness of her silver mines. She is ruled by Lara, a Tatrix. This seems paradoxical, for in Tharna, of the hundreds of known Gorean cities, the position of women is surely among the lowest. The sign of a man of Tharna is two yellow cords carried at the belt, suitable for the binding of the hands and feet of a female. At one time apparently women were dominant in Tharna but this situation, in a revolution of the males, was overturned. Few women in Tharna, even now, years later, are permitted out of the collar.